Plusnet vs. Openreach vs. Me!

[Bob Williams]

I am currently enduring a 3 cornered battle to get my FTTC upload speeds back to 12 Mbps. They just dropped last month: one day 12+, next day 4.1 to 4.5. I informed Plusnet, who sent an engineer, a huge old guy with the biggest paunch you ever saw. He recorded his findings and uploaded them to OR, I watched and listened as he did so and I saw the messages sent. He told me that there was a new Superfast cabinet much closer than the one almost a mile away and it was live. His upload informed BT OR that they needed to disconnect my line from the older cabinet and reconnect at the new one. He said this would give me much higher download and I could maybe upgrade to a 38 Mbps or even a 76 Mbps service.

Nothing happened after about 10 days, so I messaged Plusnet again. They stated that ” … the engineer had not uploaded his report.” I knew this was b***ocks, but they were sending another engineer, turned out to be the same old guy. I repeated what they said about his uploaded report and he shook his head in disgust: “You saw me do it” I agreed and he asked me to watch again, said he would go through usual tests as ‘going through the motions’, to same result. He uploaded a similar report to the first one, with the recommendation to disconnect from old cabinet and reconnect to new, stressing that this will solve the problem and suggesting that Plusnet chase up OR for the 1st and 2nd reports he uploaded.

Plusnet’s “Member Centre” website carries records of all work done on each Member’s individual records, so I can access all information. They also append a message stating that, after an engineer visit, we are not to add any more information “unless absolutely necessary”. Well, stuff that! I have appended another message, telling them that I observed the engineer’s uploads on both occasions, I saw and heard his recommendations and I stressed that this would not only solve my problem, but stop any more engineer visits. I also said that they should chase up OR for both uploads.

I think this is not only obstructive, but is preventing me from upgrading my service, which is surely to both my benefit and Plusnet’s. They made a mistake at original setup, by promising me a Minimum of 13.2 Mbps, in writing. At the time, I was getting around 6Mbps. Under the rules then just promoted by Ofcom, they had to provide the minimum, or offer a no-penalty refund of all payments made. In fact, they offered me that, and also offered a reduction for all services, almost 50%, to £14 a month. I took that and within a week, my speeds rose to 12 Mbps and stayed there until this last episode. That is probably annoying them, together with the fact that I carry out regular Speedtests and have provided them with images of the up and down life that is my service.

Plusnet blame the OR engineer, he is in the right, OR blame BT, I am in the middle and getting more annoyed with everyone except the engineer, who has been completely upfront with me. Well p****d off!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

If you know what exchange your currently connected to, go and burn it down. Then they will have to fix it ?

[Richard]

While I sympathise with Steve’s suggestion I cannot condone that action plan. I suggest that there are several points of ethics and honesty that appear to stand out along with the fact that BT, Openreach and Plusnet appear to be in breach of Ofcom’s rules. There are steps that can be taken to escalate the matter and place Openreach, BT and Plusnet a lot closer to the seriously naughty step. With finance you have to get to a deadlock situation, I am not sure if this will be the same. It would be worth documenting all that you have including the photographic evidence of the test results and the fact that Minus-Net^{(Real operating nameTM?)} subtracted the truth from their erroneous statements and raising a formal objection with whomsoever you can, Ofcom, your MP, councillor, even Facebook, other antisocial networking websites and the local paper. I am confident you can use the thick spread butter knife and wooden spoon to lay it on nice and thickly. Letters to chair persons sometime yield results.

Edit, the text formatting did not work, where is said ^and the bit in the middle should be been as superscript, sorry.

I forgot, you could always try something like Watchdog on TV, they usually like the chance to knock sloppy service and run around, always footnote any correspondence to the guilty parties with a reference to such as ‘copy for Watchdog’.

[Jukebox]

Problem is Openreach and Plusnet are both within the BT Group. For a start I’d just threaten to refer the matter to Ofcom.

[Bob Williams]

Thanks for reading my Vent guys! Tomorrow should see a message from Plusnet, usually a text and email. Appropriate action will follow, depending upon their reaction to connecting me correctly, as per the engineer’s report.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Richard]

Good luck!

[Bob Williams]

Thanks Richard, no message from Plusnet yet, which may be a good sign: they usually send a message regarding an engineer visit, very soon after the visit. I found the cabinet and it is much closer to our Close. Have to hope that this will give me better service.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

And has it ?

[Author]

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